ANOTHER NEW SODA POP
• Charles Grigg went to work for an advertisDEERE.
DEERE.
(continued):
ing
agency JOHN
in St. Louis
where
one of his cli• ents
It was
while
living
in
Illinois
thatHe
John
nowas a soft drink company.
became
ticed theby
problems
farmers
faced
intrigued
the softthat
drink
business
andwhen
went
attempting
to
till
soil.
Because
the
area
to work for the manufacturer, tinkering had
with
formerly
been
woodland,
the
soil
was
rich
recipes and inventing a successful new soft
with hummus, which clumped and clung to
drink called Whistle (as in ‘wet your’). After
the blades of the plows farmers were accusa tomed
falling-out
with his boss, he went to work
to using. While repairing a broken cirfor
a
different
softstumbled
drink maker
invented
cular saw, Deere
upon and
an idea.
He
anemployed
orange-flavored
soft
drink
called
Howdy.
his smith skills to fashion the steel
Howdy
was the
popular
blade into
shapebut
of ita could
plow. not
He compete
affixed
with
which
the market
sewn
twoOrange
woodenCrush
spokes,
thenhad
hitched
the device
uptotight.
a horse. It plowed the heavy Illinois soil
like a charm.
In fact,
a farmer
• Eventually
Charles
started
his who
ownhappened
firm, and
to
be
observing
the
test
run
immediately
put
in 1929 came out with a lemon-lime flavored
in an order for his own John Deere plow.
soda called Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime
• Soda.
In short
order, Deere
blacksmith
‘Bib-Label’
wasgave
for up
thehisbottle’s
label
shop
and
focused
on
making
plows.
The
which was hung around the neck of the bottle
company
steadily and
added
emlike
a bib, grew
and ‘lithiated’
was
for many
the lithium
ployees.
In
the
late
1840s,
John
relocated
citrate (a mood enhancing substance) thatthe
the
entire operation to Moline, Illinois. Ashamed
drink contained in trace amounts.
of his own lack of education, John sent his
• Charles
luckfinest
to release
hisOne
product
childrenhad
to the
the bad
state’s
schools.
of
mere
weeks before
the stock
market
crash of
his proudest
days occurred
when
son Charles
earnedDuring
the equivalent
of an
MBA fromthat
Bell’s
1929.
the Great
Depression
folCommercial
in Chicago.
lowed,
he hadCollege
a lot stacked
against him: his
difficult
name, the
it was
priced
• product
With hishad
son aCharles
managing
company,
higher
than
the
competition,
and
he
had
John found time to pursue philanthropic ain-lot
He co-founded
ofterests.
competition.
The oneboth
thingthe
heFirst
couldNationchange
al Bank
and thesoFirst
Congregational
Church.
was
the name,
he changed
it to something
He was elected
theBy
mayor
of Moline
in 1873,
extremely
simple.
the 1940s
his re-named
where
one
of the
his third
first best
actions
– thesoda
replacesoft
drink
was
selling
in the
ment
of
the
city’s
open
drains
with
a
sewer
world. What’s the new name? (Answer at botpipeofsystem
tom
page) – saved countless lives by reducing the spread of disease.
IT'S A FACT
• The original John Deere logo, registered in
• A failed cola company in Ohio named their
1876, depicted a deer that was native to Afrinew pop Norka, advertising, “Remember—
ca. Thirty-six years later, in 1912, it was reNorka
backwards
placedspelled
with the
image ofisaAkron.”
North American